[himanshu]

I find "Kubuntu" to help me be more productive but then it is a matter of personal preference also.

"Yakuake" is a Quake style terminal that Smoothly rolls down from the top of your screen after you press the shortcut key. This thing saves a lot of time to get quick access to the terminal without having to look for the shortcut icon in the Desktop or the Taskbar.

If you need a good python editor than I would reccomend "DrPython". Also "ipython" is a good replacement for the standard python shell.

For text editing in general I like "Cream" which is basically a nicely configured "gvim" : http://cream.sourceforge.net/

Konversation is my favorite irc client.

[manvsmachine]

I started out using Kubuntu, but the only thing is that they're switching to KDE4 for the next release. If your system is just for general use, then that's not a big deal, but I'm waiting till KDE gets a little more stable before using it for dev.

[queensnake]

That thing chokes my system - it's nice for sure, but I'm going to have to upgrade just to get useable speed.